Dipak Misra & His “About-Turns”

Dipak Misra, the 45th Chief Justice of India is retiring on October 2nd after the tenure of 13 months. He sworn in as the Chief of Apex Court on August 28th 2017. The most controversial Chief justice of the country is outgoing after leaving landmark verdicts in most crucial issues of the country.

After five months after the sworn in 4 senior judges of the Supreme Court J. Chelameshwar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph had addressed a press conference and criticized Dipak Misra’s the serious irregularities in the administration and the way of allotting particular cases to the benches headed by junior judges, ignoring the senior ones. These four judges addressed the media after they didn’t get any responses from the CJI for their letter sent pointing out mistakes

Justice B.H. Loya who raised against BJP president Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin sheikh encounter was dead, Amit Shah is among the accused in the Sohrabuddin encounter case. Justice B.H. Loya’s death was written as a “natural”, but the family members claim that the death was “unnatural”. And while the case was taken to the Supreme Court for review , the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra dismissed the review petitions stating that as natural death caused due to cardiac arrest. The four judges while addressing the media also revealed CJI’s rejection of demand for senior bench to hear PIL on Judge Loya’s death.

Ranjan Gogoi and Dipak Misra

After the statements by the four senior judges the Opposition parties submitted a impeachment petition aginst Dipak Misra to the Vice President Venkaiah Naidu with the signatures of 71 parliamentarians. And this is the first time in the history of India that a impeachment petition was filed against a Supreme Court Chief Justice. Later, the impeachment petition was rejected by the Vice President , on the basis that the complaints were about the internal administration and not misbehavior and that thus impeachment would seriously obstruct with the constitutionally protected independence of the judiciary.

After completing 13 months of his tenure he is retiring after leaving landmark judgements in most controversial issues of the country. The judgements which was passed by the benches headed by Chief justice in last few weeks was favourable atleast to a section of the modern society and those verdicts are breaking the age-old customs of the Indian society. The judgments such as striking down of IPC 377 (gay is not a crime). IPC 497 (Adultery not a crime), Sabarimala’s Verdict, Ayodhya Verdictv and others. These are the most sensitive issues. These judgements at the time of Dipak Misra’s retirement is whether to restore his “good image”???. There was a rumour , that he was right wing ally and some judgements like striking down of IPC sections 377, 497 are surely against the ideologies of the right wing activist and these group upholds the century old traditions and customs.